Suction cleaner bumper



sept- 1966 R. s. WATERS ETAL SUCTION CLEANER BUMPER Filed March 23, 1964 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 WITNESSES:

INVENTORS Robert 8. Waters and John W. Gilliom ATTORNEY Sept. 6, 1966 R. s. WATERS ETAL 3,270,365

SUCTION CLEANER BUMPER Filed March 23, 1964 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 United States Patent 3,270,365 SUCTION CLEANER BUMPER Robert S. Waters, Lexington, and John W. Gilliom, Mansfield, Ohio, assignors to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa., a corporation of Pennsylvania Filed Mar. 23, 1964, Ser. No. 353,747 1 Claim. (Cl. 15325) This invention relates to bumpers and has particular reference to a new and improved bumper for suction cleaners.

In using a suction cleaner or other apparatus not provided with a bumper, the housing often times strikes furniture or other such objects, in the path of travel, with such force as to injure one or both. To obviate this problem most prior art devices of this type are provided with a bumper secured to the housing in a suitable location. Such devices are also provided with separate handles for carrying the cleaner from place to place.

In a few prior art devices of this type, bumpers have been provided which are also utilized as the carrying handle, however, this type of arrangement has been found unsatisfactory because the bumper to be effective as such, has to be mounted near the bottom of the cleaner at a location which is below its center of gravity, the exact location being predetermined by the shape of the cleaner. When, as in this instance, the cleaner is widest at the bottom, the bumper must be mounted near the bottom to insure protection (from bumping) of the portions of the housing which would lie below the bumper.

When the bumper, which is used as a handle, and the center of gravity of the cleaner do not lie in the same plane while the cleaner is carried, a force coupling is created which rotates the cleaner about the bumper due to the weight of the cleaner acting through the center of gravity. It will be understood that this rotation due to the force coupling takes place when the cleaner is raised off the floor by grasping the bumper.

Because the hand engaging portion of a bumper of the prior art is parallel to the floor when the cleaner rests thereon, it will be angulated with respect to the floor when the cleaner is in the raised position, due to the rotation of the cleaner. The result is to cause the Weight of the cleaner to be unevenly distributed over the hand engaging portion of the bumper, the weight being concentrated in one of the lateral edges thereof. This concentration of the weight in the lateral edge of the hand engaging portion of the bumper causes the lateral edge to dig into the hand thereby making it difficult to carry the cleaner.

The adverse effect of the prior art arrangement described above has been minimized by the present invention by providing a bumper in which the hand engaging portion thereof is initially angulated with respect to the floor when the cleaner rests thereon and is disposed parallel thereto when the cleaner is in the raised posit-ion. It will be understood that with such an arrangement the hand engaging surface will lie squarely in the hand thereby facilitating carrying of the cleaner. To this end the hand engaging portion of the bumper of this invention is so oriented with respect to the center of gravity of the cleaner that a plane perpendicular thereto passes substantially through the center of gravity of the cleaner.

Another disadvantage of bumpers of the prior art which are used as handles is that they are made in one piece, of a material such as rubber or the like. In order for such arrangements to be utilized effectively as a handle, a hard solid rubber material has to be used, thereby greatly diminishing its effectiveness as a bumper. Furthermore, the life span of such materials is greatly curtailed due to cracking and subsequent breaking.

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Accordingly, it is the general object of this invention to provide a new and improved bumper for suction cleaners. 1

Another object of this invention is to provide a new and improved bumper which can be used as a carrying handle and which facilitates the carrying of the cleaner.

A further object of this invention is to provide a new and improved bumper for a suction cleaner which is rigid enough to be used as a carrying handle yet resilient enough to be eifective as a bumper.

A still further object of this invention is to provide a new and improved bumper for suction cleaners which is simple in construction and inexpensive to manufacture.

Briefly, the present invention accomplishes the above cited objects by providing a bumper which comprises two members. One member is a metal channel section bent into a U-shaped configuration and which is stationa-rily mounted to the side walls of the cleaner housing adjacent the bottom. The other member is a soft plastic or rubber extrusion which is generally A-shaped in cross section, which can be snapped int-o the channel section and retained therein by coaction of the leg portions of the A-shaped extrusion with the channel section.

The improved load-distributing handle utilizes a U- shaped bumper having a pair of legs joined by a central or hand engaging portion, wherein the legs are curved in a manner that when the bumper is fastened to the cleaner housing (one leg to each side) they extend straight forward to a point and then curve downwardly an amount sufficient to cause the central or hand engaging portion to be oriented at an angle of with respect to a plane passing through the center of gravity of the cleaner.

Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent as the following description proceeds, .and features of novelty which characterize the invention will be pointed out in particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this specification.

For a better understanding of the invention reference may be had to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a top plan view of a suction cleaner incorporating one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is an elevational view of the cleaner of FIG. 1, resting on the floor;

FIG. 3 isa rotated elevational view of the suction cleaner shown in FIG. 2, in the position it would occupy when raised off the floor and hand carried;

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view taken on the line IVIV of FIG. 2; and

FIG. 5 is a front elevation of the suction cleaner shown in FIG. 1.

Referring to the drawings, especially FIG. 1, reference character 10 designates generally a suction cleaner having a housing 11 provided with a front wall 12, side walls 13, and a bottom wall 14. The cleaner is movably supported by a caster 15 and a pair of rear wheels 16 (FIGS. 2, v3 and 5). The cleaner is provided with a bumper generally designated 17, comprising a U-shaped member 18 and a resilient member 19.

The U-shaped member 18, made from any suitable material, for example, metal, can be fabricated by bending a suitable length of material, of substantially channel shaped cross section having a pair of opposed L-shaped side walls 20 connected to a fiat central wall portion 21 (see FIG. 4), to form a U-shaped configuration having a pair of legs 22 joined by a handle portion 23 having an inner hand engaging surface 23a (FIGS. 1 and 3).

Each bumper leg 22 includes a portion 22a abutting the casing 13 and extending generally parallel to the floor when the cleaner rests on the latter in working position, and a portion 22b which is bent or formed out 3 of parallelism with the floor or with the portion 22a, as best shown in FIGS. 2 and 3.

The bending or forming of the legs 22 to provide the angular relationship of the leg portions 22a to the portions 22b is such that the hand engaging surface 23a of the handle portion 23 lies in a plane approximately perpendicular to a plane passing through both the handle 23 and the center of gravity of the cleaner. In other words a plane perpendicular to the hand engaging surface will form an acute angle with the axes of the legs. It will be understood that the handle 23 can be so oriented that when the bumper 17 is mounted on the cleaner a plane (shown as a dot-dash line in FIGS. 2 and 3) passing substantially through the center of gravity of the cleaner when the cleaner is carried by the handle, will intersect said hand engaging surface 23a at right angles (see FIG. 3), with the result that the edges of the hand engaging surfaces 23a do not tend to cut into the hand.

The resilient member 19 made from any suitable material, for example, soft rubber and formed by simple extruding methods, is substantially A-shaped in cross section. The resilient member is provided with a pair of diverging extensions 24 and a hole coextensive with the length thereof (see FIG. 4). The hole and the space between the diverging extensions serve to permit the outer surface of the resilient member to deform upon contacting furniture or other such objects thereby providing a cushioning effect.

The resilient member 19 which is cut to the same length as the U-shaped member 18 can be detachably secured to the U-shaped member by first inserting one of the extensions 24 into a cavity formed between one of the L-shaped legs 20 and the central wall portion 21, and then squeezing the other extension toward the extension already inserted until it snaps into a similar cavity formed between the central Wall port-ion 21 and the other L-shaped leg. The resilient member, having been so secured to the U-shaped member, will remain firmly in the outwardly facing opening defined by the L-shaped legs 20, due to the cooperation of the diverging extensions with the L-shaped legs.

It will, therefore, be apparent that there has been disclosed a bumper for suction cleaners which can be used as a carrying handle and which facilitates the carrying of the cleaner.

While there has been shown and described what is at present considered to be the preferred embodiment of the invention, modifications thereto will readily occur to those skilled in the art. It is not desired, therefore, that the invention be limited to the specific arrangements shown and described and it is intended to cover in the appended claim all such modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

We claim as our invention:

In a suction cleaner, a housing having a front wall, slopping side walls and a bottom wall, the distance between said side walls being greater at the bottom than at the top, a bumper effective as a carrying handle for said suction cleaner, said bumper comprising: a U-shaped member having a pair of curved legs immovably secured to said side Walls, said U-shaped member further having a handle portion extending across said front wall and having a hand engaging surface, said curved legs extending forwardly beyond said front wall and downwardly toward said bottom wall whereby said hand engaging surface is disposed at right angles to a plane passing near the center of gravity of the suction cleaner, a resilient elongated member having diverging extensions, said U-shaped member having a cross section comprising a pair of L-shaped legs joined by a substantially flat wall portion constituting said hand engaging surface, said L-shaped legs defining an outwardly facing opening therebetween for receiving said diverging extensions whereby said resilient member is detachably secured to said U-shaped member through eoaction of said diverging extensions with said L-shaped legs, the points at which said bumper is secured to said side walls being intermediate said top and bottom walls and at a distance from said bottom wall whereby the outwardly extending surface of said resilient member extends beyond a plane passing through the lower edges of said side walls and perpendicular to the transverse axis of the cleaner.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS D. 146,971 6/ 1947 Kroenlein. D. 182,406 4/ 1958 Ernest. D. 185,838 8/1959 Allemang.

1,936,113 11/1933 Jelliffe. 2,335,031 11/1943 Stevens. 2,372,007 3/ 1945 Kroenlein 15327 X FOREIGN PATENTS 483,759 6/1952 Canada. 484,738 5/ 1938 Great Britain.

ROBERT W. MICHELL, Primary Examiner. 

